The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

CPAC: Too Early to Think About 2026?

Posted on | February 20, 2025 | Comments Off on CPAC: Too Early to Think About 2026?

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
So I get on the hotel elevator with a couple, and the guy’s wearing a red shirt emblazoned, “RON ELLER FOR CONGRESS.” Curiosity being a journalistic habit, I ask the guy, “Who’s Ron Eller?”

“I’m Ron Eller,” he says, and then proceeds to tell me that he ran for Congress last year in Mississippi against Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who was handpicked by Nancy Pelosi to chair the infamous J6 witch hunt committee. Mississippi has four congressional districts, three of which are held by Republicans with about 70% of the vote, whereas Thompson’s 2nd District, covering the Delta region stretching down the western side of the state, is rated D+11 by the Cook Political Report. Thompson’s been in Congress more than 30 years, and the last time any Republican challenger got as much as 40% of the vote against him was in 2004. There is no logical reason to think Thompson’s could be vulnerable in 2026, however . . .

Ron Eller got 38% of the vote last year despite being outspent more than 5-to-1 by the incumbent Democrat. The national Republican establishment didn’t lift a finger to help and wouldn’t even return Eller’s phone calls. Eller is a determined fellow who can and will give you his stump speech extempaneously, and he’s planning to challenge Thompson again in 2026. You got to like Eller’s bio — 20-year military veteran and small business owner, a deeply religious and patriotic man in a region where Bible-believing Christian faith is still nearly universal.

What could Ron Eller do in 2026, if we could mobilize grassroots MAGA activists to support his campaign? What would it mean, even in a D+11 district, to have major GOP fundraising efforts to back a candidate like Eller, the underdog against the 30-year incumbent lapdog of the left-wing Democratic Party establishment? So, after hearing Eller give his impromptu stump speech — I’m telling you, the guy’s a campaign machine — I said, “You remember the Tea Party year? Remember that campaign against Barney Frank?” Sean Bielat ring a bell?

That’s what we need — grassroots energy in a longshot campaign like the one that forced Barney Frank to spend half-a-million dollars of his own money to fend off the underdog challenger.

Even if you don’t win a campaign like that, the point is you force Democrats to play defense in otherwise “safe” districts, which limits how much money and effort they can put into fighting in the “purple” battleground races. Can MAGA generate the kind of grassroots energy in 2026 the Tea Party had in 2010? I don’t know. But what I do know is, I like this guy I met in the hotel elevator.

RON ELLER for U.S. CONGRESS



 

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Category: Congress, CPAC, Election, Mississippi

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